Cleric
The Power of God Himself The Cleric is basically a divine fanboy who draws power from their holy celebrity and just creates pain for the DM trying to create balanced encounters without killing the rest of their party. There are 5 billion subclasses for the Cleric and we're going to go through all of them. Please don't hate me. Abilities and Boring Stuff The Cleric relies heavily on Wisdom, and so you should focus on getting it to 20 as quickly as possible. Strength is important as Clerics are seen as semi front line fighters, as seen in the Tempest(PHB) and Forge(XGtE) subclasses, and so you need some Strength to whack people with. Many Clerics wear Heavy Armor as well, and to wear Heavy Armor without penalty requires a Strength of 13 for lower tier armor and 15 for higher grade armor unless you're a Dwarf. Divine Domains Basically the type of god that you scrape towards. They're in alphabetical order because OCD. Enjoy. Arcana(SCAG) Your god is a wizard. This is a very good subclass because the Wizard is more of a utility caster and the Cleric is healing and defender. The best of both worlds. You get some fantastic options from the Wizard's spell list like Detect Magic, Magic Missile, and Arcane Eye, but maintain the Cleric's healing. If I had to pick one spellcaster for my party, this would be it. You get some pretty solid class features. Arcane Initiate just makes you a magical nerd and turns you into an arcane Swiss Army knife. Your Channel Divinity lets you switch modes on your magical Turn Undead fright beam of death and use it on any creature you want to. Death(DMG) You become a true necromancer. This is an offensive subclass with no support or healing, which is why the Cleric's in the party in the first place. The spell list's okay, and many of the abilities are either situational or not good enough. This is really not a good subclass. Okay. Martial Weapons are good. Reaper is a decent feature. It allows you to use gain a damaging option and use it to double kill. But Channel Divinity's not too good and Inescapable Destruction is not really helpful since not many creatures have resistance to necrotic in the first place. Divine Strike is in other Cleric subclasses. Improved Reaper, however, has promise. It doesn't make up for the rest of the class. Forge(XGtE) What can I say? This subclass is absolutely amazing. Practically all of your domain spells are practical spells that aren't on the Cleric spell list. The features are amazing. this just goes to show that the forge is stronger than the blade. First of all, Heavy Armor. That's really good. Then a permanent magic item buff that you can move around to suit the occasion. Even better. You can create items in a pinch. Too good to be true. Resistance to the most common energy damage type in the game and a permanent armor buff in a game where armor doesn't scale and that +1 could save you. My world is collapsing. You deal extra damage on a melee hit. That's really good on a subclass that's clearly a front-line fighter. And then immunity to the most common energy damage type in the game along with resistance to all nonmagical attack damage. This Domain speaks for itself. Grave(XGtE) An interesting mix of damage and buffing. The power of the grave allows you to manipulate life force; Give some to your allies, take some from your enemies. This is a very interesting subclass indeed. Not the best for min-maxing, but good for character building and flavor. The spell list is good. You get Revivify for free, which is every Clerics dream, you get great damage and support options, you're a Blaster. Circle of Mortality buffs Healing Word considerably, as Healing Word's role in a Clerics arsenal is to bring people up onto their feet, having this trait will give Healing Word a little extra supplement to pad your friend's hitpoints. Eyes of the Grave is plain stupid. Just take Detect Evil. The Channel Divinity is great for focusing down one creature like a BBEG(Big Bad Evil Guy). Just remember that it only applies once. Sentinel at Death's Door is great for keeping your allies not dead. I like keeping my allies not dead. Keeper of Souls is the game asking you to be a sadist. You feel better when you kill people. Have fun being a sociopath. I'm kidding. Don't report me, please. Knowledge(PHB) Your idol is a big brain boy. They know lots of stuff and so do you. You get free Expertise in 2 smart skills, and you can speak 2 more languages. You also get Arcane Eye, which is amazing. Arcane Eye literally lets you scout out a whole dungeon before you enter it because knowledge, baby! You get 2 Channel Divinities because your god spoils you. You can become magically good at stuff, can read people's minds, and force them to obey the Cleric. Then you can make your Sacred Flame more flamey and learn about stuff through objects like Rey from The Force Awakens. You. Are. Big Brain!!! Life(PHB) Your job is to literally just keep people not dead. Your sugar daddy is basically any not evil dude. You have many options. You're just the classic laser-shooting healbot. Enjoy! Your spell list is amazing. You get the classic heal, a really good early game buff, and you can summon spectral weapons that run around smacking things on the head for you! Also, you get Revivify and Beacon of Hope for free. Revivify is better than Raise Dead in every way and Beacon of Hope makes it easy as **** to heal people. Then at level 7, you can give your buddy a Focus Sash from the Pokemon games or summon Gandalf in angel form. "You shall not pass!" And then your 3rd level spells suck so just ignore them. Raise Dead is useless unless you're in a game with a Zealot Barbarian, and Mass Cure Wounds is just bad in general when you have your Channel Divinity. Wow. I spent way too much time on that. Now at 1st level, you get Heavy Armor. That's kinda important because you're the guy keeping the party not dead and if you die, there's no one else to do that unless you're all in a cult or something. Disciple of Life is amazing. You can scream louder when you cast Healing Word, and if you take the Magic Initiate feat and get Goodberry, you can heal unreal amount of hitpoints for no cost whatsoever. Your Channel Divinity is just extra OP healing because you didn't have any already, and Blessed Healer is even more on top of that. Divine Strike is the standard mountain of damage that Clerics get to add to their war hammer/mace, and Supreme Healing turn you into an immortal god of healing power. Hopefully you read all of that. It's a lot I know. Light(PHB) You're an Evocation Wizard with a little bit of God on the side. You get a bunch of damaging spells on your Domain list, and you get the best evocation spell in the game. Fireball.